Put a Shine on This, Madam Speaker

By: Erik Rush

Our inimical lich of a House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was at it again last week, subtly sabotaging our militaryâ€™s efforts in Iraq, potentially demoralizing and compromising our troops in a transparent election year political ploy. On April 4, Pelosi admonished General David Petraeus not to â€œput a shineâ€ on developments in Iraq when he and U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker testify before Congress this week. Petraeus and Crockerâ€™s report will ostensibly illustrate Iraqâ€™s political and military progress since their last report to Congress in September.

â€œWe have to know the real ground truths of what is happening there, not put a shine on events,â€ the Speaker said. She was referring to recent violence in Iraqâ€™s southern city of Basra which took place after Iraqâ€™s national forces targeted Shiite militiamen there in late March. Said militiamen are loyal to the porcine radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, whom most practical folks believe should have been assassinated at least two years ago. The incidents in Basra resulted in skirmishes of varying intensity in other Shiite areas and only abated after al-Sadr ordered his followers to stand down.

The Speakerâ€™s comments were calculated to do two things: One, to neutralize any positive effect Petraeusâ€™s report might have on Americansâ€™ morale as regards the Iraq conflict, the surge in particular. The other was prophylaxis â€“ to neutralize, ahead of time, the positive political effect Republicans enjoy whenever good news comes out of Iraq. The last was an effort on Pelosiâ€™s part to remind Americans why so many of them are considering casting votes for dyed-in-the-wool socialist elites in the upcoming general election.

Indeed, on Sunday and Monday, the establishment press made more of the fact that Democrats in Congress were taking a critical stance of the Petraeus- Crocker hearings than the hearings themselves. How are things going in Iraq, by the way? It doesnâ€™t matter; Petraeus is going to lie anyhow.

Despite the Iran-backed thorn in the side represented by al-Sadr, the surge has been effective relative to foreign terrorists in Iraq, who were the source of the greatest portion of mayhem prior to the surge. This is generally not good, given the establishment media and far Left Congressâ€™s success in presenting the Iraq campaign as an abysmal failure of the highest order and focusing Americans on their opportunity to anoint a new Democrat savior in November.

It then behooves congressional Democrats, Pelosi in particular given her position, to carefully place these propagandistic land mines in every area that has potential to draw our attention from where they would have it. Iraq was folly, it is a quagmire, worse than Vietnam, and any Republican administration will only promise more of the same. Forget what the troops who have been there relate (should it escape the pressâ€™s truth-quashing filtration system) apropos the necessity of our efforts; theyâ€™re just stupid, brainwashed kids. Our overwhelming desire must be to get out at any cost, or there is no motivation whatsoever to vote for the Democrat nominee.

If one did not know better, one might think that Pelosi and the Democratic National Committee had a direct line to al-Sadrâ€™s headquarters. Our national security? A secondary consideration. The troops and Iraqi citizens who might be maimed or die as a result of her words? Of whom do you speak? All that matters is the undeadâ€™s next feed, the next ill-gotten political gain, the next successful misdirection.

Not that Pelosi corners the market on such treachery. Let us not forget the past treason of Representative John Murtha, who has also stooped as low as being a contributor to the far Left blog The Huffington Post; lending credence and legitimacy to that abomination with his office speaks for itself. During a radio address on April 5, Senator Joe Biden (D-Del) persisted in the call for our withdrawal from Iraq with baseless claims that the surge has failed.

â€œPelosi and [Senate Majority Leader Harry] Reid also called for a â€˜changeâ€™ in strategy in Iraqâ€¦â€

My, doesnâ€™t that sound familiar? â€œChangeâ€ without clarification thereupon. Itâ€™s duplicitous business as usual in Congress, but Americans have been so inundated by the press with Iraq as a lodestone, the carny-like antics of Democrat candidates and self-destructive acts of the Spears sisters that theyâ€™re numb to these machinations.

One could argue that it is the fault of congressional Republicans and the Bush administration that we have Pelosi, Reid and the Democrats in control of Congress at all â€“ and they would be correct, but only in part. The fault also lies with Americans who have become accustomed to being spoon-fed media propaganda, those who have abandoned critical thinking, and those who eschew their civic duties by not voting at all.

All of this militates against the political process intended by the founders of this nation â€“ which ought to be first on the list of â€œchangeâ€ anyone addresses.

Erik Rush is a Staff Writer for the New Media Alliance, Inc. (www.thenma.org).